The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (637 page)

 
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Devay
na
.

‘The path of the deva’, the way, in Hinduism, followed by the truly faithful after death, leading to the realization of
Brahman
. Less mythologically, it is the path of wisdom and spiritual knowledge.

 
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(Heb., ‘cleaving’). Communion with God, derived from Heb.,
davak
, being devoted to God. It is a concept and an attainment of great importance in
asidism
.

 
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Dev
.

Hindu Goddess. The term can be applied to any of the many forms of the Goddess. Initially, they may simply have been the feminine counterpart of the
devas
, but already by the
Vedic
period they appear as manifestations of the power inherent in natural phenomena, as e.g.
U
as
(dawn), R
tr
(night),
Ga
g
(Ganges), and other sacred rivers. In the post-Vedic period, many of these features were assimilated in Mah
dev
(Great Goddess), who is the source of energy in the cosmos (
kti
), the dynamic counterpart of
iva
. For
ktas, Mah
dev